Kazaa keywords to be blocked, Australian judge rules

Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Australian federal court orders last week.

Justice Murray Wilcox has ordered the owner of Kazaa, Sharman Networks, to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search terms--primarily artist and song names--to be supplied by the record companies. Justice Wilcox's order follows the record companies' court victory in September against individuals and organizations associated with Kazaa.

The Australian court has ordered Sharman to release a new version of Kazaa by Dec. 5 that includes a nonoptional keyword filter, restricting users' ability to illegally access and swap copyright music.

The record companies may also update the list of search terms every two weeks. Once Sharman receives the updated list, it has 48 hours to act on the changes.

Justice Wilcox also ordered in a hearing yesterday that dialogue boxes appear on the Kazaa Web site "to place maximum pressure on KMD (Kazaa Media Desktop) users to obtain the updated release."

Nominating the 3,000 keywords is an interim measure ahead of Sharman's appeal in February of the trial ruling.

"On one hand, I want to protect the applicants as well as I can, but without damaging the respondents," Wilcox said.

The record companies have a list of 10,000 keywords they want Kazaa to block user access to, according to counsel for the record companies, Tony Bannon, who described the 3,000 measure as "woefully inadequate."

Wilcox had previously ordered Sharman to modify Kazaa to include keyword search filters, which would block popular songs, by Dec. 5.

However the Sharman parties' legal team claimed that audio-fingerprinting technology from U.S. company Audible Magic would provide more effective filtering. They cited Wilcox's judgment in September, which allowed that the modifications to Kazaa could include more effective solutions than keyword filtering.

Audio fingerprinting works by capturing characteristics of songs that can be compared with files on a peer-to-peer network rather than relying on file name or format.

"Audible Magic involves getting the fingerprints for all songs," Sharman spokesman John Ireland said. "You put a black box between two peers, and if someone wants to copy something on the list, you can't do it," he said.

However, Sharman's legal team acknowledged that implementing audio fingerprinting though would require a major change to Kazaa's architecture and asked that the deadline for modifying the software be extended until March to allow this.

"This Audible Magic thing is something that (former music piracy investigator Michael) Speck's known about for years," Ireland said.

However, the record companies' legal team described the technology as "ineffective."

Justice Wilcox acknowledged the remarks, saying "reading what the registrar (from an earlier hearing) said about it, this sounds like the solution to all the problems."

However, after noting that Audible Magic's technologies had not been mentioned previously in the case, he disallowed, for now, Sharman's push for it to replace keyword search terms.

Sharman would have to persuade the court that Audible Magic is more effective than keyword filtering in order for it to become the required modification, Wilcox said.

"Audible Magic sounds fantastic, but magic is often illusory," he said.

Steven Deare of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

[yrrahxob]

Upgrade?

Now what I would like to know is who is going to force me to upgrade to the new version of the software that has the filters. I guess the next thing that will happen is the federal government will give the RIAA the right to come into our homes to make sure we are running the latest version of P2P software and confiscate our computer if they think we are in violation. I think it's time to start cleaning up the rifles and shotguns that have been collecting dust in the attics and closets. We may soon need them.

[System Tyrant]

No...

what will probably happen is the older versions of Kazaa will be blocked from the network.

[System Tyrant]

Glad to live in America

We're not perfect in Amercia, but at least I don't think we are quite as brazen.

[Dachi]

Simple to bypass

The filter would have to be done through the client software, and something like this would be pretty trivial to bypass or write a patch for.

A high percentage users are already using modified clients like kazaa Lite Resurection etc. and the patch will simply be bundled into future rogue kazaa releases.

Not to say that it won't have any impact at all, as it will have an impact on availability of some files and the network is already getting pretty useless for some stuff.

It sure won't end the battle though. There is a ton of ideas that have not even been implimented well yet.